Working list of requirements for the toys that I will develop here:

•Cool

•Cute

•Foward-looking

•Fun

•Free for village children 

•Made from local and natural materials

•Built by children themselves

•Engaging play patterns that involve construction, mechanics, imagination, storytelling

…so that they don’t have to play with (used) condoms (found on the beach).

In Cape Maclear this weekend, I came across three boys making their own toys. The cars were made out of milk boxes, jar lids, and dried reeds.

Last week, I talked with a specialist in early childhood development. She said that in the villages, boys make their own cars such as these, while girls pretend that corn cobs and bottles are dolls. Unfortunately, the cobs don’t last very long, and the bottles can be sold to recyclers, making them too valuable to be used as toys. (To me, these improvised dolls are much more heartbreaking than the cars, which are simple but also kind of cool. Maybe that’s just a personal bias, and I have yet to see the dolls, since they’re mostly kept indoors.) Children will also sometimes use scrap bricks as building blocks.